Valley Chronicle

Doc / Punker's Crowning Performance Was Cadaver Ball

The first album by punk rocking brain surgeon Tony Feuerman is now on sale at Sherman Oaks Tower Records.

Behold the second coming of Buckaroo Bonzai, a gentleman whom you may remember could play guitar using one side of his brain, while playing physician and particle physicist with what was left on the right.

Feuerman's new CD was produced by E. E. G. Records, his vanity company.

It is entitled, "Blade," which is, of course, the medical profession's handle for a physician who cuts. One of the more haunting tunes on the disc is the surf punk love song entitled, "You're Trash, You're Scum."

It's all retro Sex Pistols punk stuff.

Still, the 35-year-old Feuerman is not one of your run-of-the-mill, down-and-dirty demented rockers, and no matter how successful his album is, he probably won't give up his day job.

Feuerman is on staff as a neurosurgeon at Tarzana Medical Center and West Hills Medical Center. He keeps regular office hours at his private practice in Encino, and has a home in the Santa Monica Mountains that he shares with his wife, Giovanna Minghetti, an advertising executive.

He was raised in Los Angeles and was graduated from Inglewood High School and Pomona College, before completing medical school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He served a seven-year residency in neurosurgery at UCLA Medical Center, where he was chief resident. He set up practice in 1989.

He says he had the highest score in the country on his medical board exams in 1988, is a member of Phi Beta Kapa and the medical honor society, Alpha Omega Alpha.

But the seeds of the demon rock 'n' roll fever were evident early.

He started taking guitar lessons at age 7 and played at his own Bar Mitzvah with a musical set that included "Hava Nagila" mixed with a little Hendrix and Cream.

He hacked around with several groups while attending Pomona College, then started playing seriously during his med school days at Vanderbilt, where he spent evenings at a local club jamming with a bluegrass band that was led by a physiology professor.

His crowning work was performing at his med school's Cadaver Ball.

"I've always been interested in not just playing but performing," says Feuerman.

The doctor started sitting in with a local medical technician who had a garage studio and some friends with whom to make music. The band made some local appearances, like those at a Northridge club, which were successful.

The success encouraged Feuerman to take a month off from surgery in late 1992 to write and record a crude eight-track. The recording attracted a rock manager and producer who encouraged the doctor to push onward.

"I did the commercial recording in June and it has been taken to specific record stores in August," says Feuerman.

Asked what his patients think, he says so far, so good.

"I think it's a novelty to my patients who know, but they still see me primarily as their doctor," says Feuerman, adding, "They don't care what I do with my spare time, as long as I know my business in the operating room."

Now Here's a Lifetime of Positive Action

Kilian Eaton got the call when she was an 18-year-old girl in County Mayo.

"It was just one of those lucky things. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life," she says.

So, for 60 years she has been a member of the Sisters of St. Louis, which is a French order with a motherhouse in Ireland.

For the past 10 years, she has been an elementary school teacher at St. Mel's in Woodland Hills.

"When I got out of high school, I knew I wanted to be a nun and a teacher," says Sister Kilian. She was schooled by the order to become both.

She was sent to the United States in 1949 when she was in her early 30s. "I was one of a group of sisters sent to Lakewood to set up a Catholic school here," she says.

Although she has traveled some, she has been in Los Angeles ever since.

Now, although officially "retired," the sister helps out at St. Mel's teaching remedial reading or wherever there is a need.

"I would rather teach than do whatever people do who have retired," she says, laughing. "I love being with the children, they keep you young," the 78-year-old says.

Recently she was honored for her 60 years in service. After Sunday Mass at St. Mel's, a reception was held.

Many of her students, past and present, attended, as did about 70 others from her order, from all over Los Angeles.

She says she has never had a midlife crisis where she wanted to leave the order and go out on her own. "Others may have, but it has not happened to me," she says.

Mature Agenda for CSUN Goodwill Ambassador

Yvonne Gilon, 16, is the new Cal State Northridge director of community services representing the Associated Students.

She is currently at work developing a program she calls Operational Domestic Storm, which is a plan to "get this great nation, or at least the Valley, moving again."

She says her program is necessary because "our community, state and country are faced with challenges and problems threatening the quality of our lives."